Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Cancelled Due to Lack of Interest

The state Republican and Democratic parties will elect new Chairmen this weekend, and for some reason I can't muster up any interest in the outcome. I don't see the direction of either organization changing with any of the likely candidates.

David Sanders did say a few things that caused the synapses to fire a bit in his recent column. He noted that the GOP gained state house seats in a terrible year for Republicans nationally. He attributes the success to not wasting resources battling for expensive Congressional seats they can't really win and instead focusing on smaller races.

Maybe that was the plan, and maybe it was from an inability to recruit candidates for those tough big races. I also note that although it was a bad year for Republicans nationally McCain did well in Arkansas. Apparently some Arkansas Democrats did not vote for the guy who vanquished Hillary.

Whether it was the original plan or it became the plan, it was and is a good strategy for the reeling state GOP or any new alternative party that might rise up. The key mistake new alternative parties make is swinging for the fence and wasting resources on offices that are too big relative to their political firepower.